everything-is-old

Journos Excited by Long Words

Pareene · 02/28/08 05:56PM

There is a charming story that Malcolm Gladwell has told over and over again about how he used to try to sneak funny phrases into the newspaper he worked for, back when he was a journalist and not yet a personality. Turns out everyone's done it! Michael Scherer, currently with Time, explains that when he was working at an unnamed newspaper bureau in Easthampton, Mass, he and his "colleague" would try to sneak "obscure 10-dollar word[s]" into their copy. The best he ever did was "dun." But the dude who wrote noted Scrabble champion William F. Buckley's obit for the Times got his Roget's on and used "Sesquipedalian" in an A1 headline. Jesus, journalists need hobbies. What happened to drinking and fucking again? [Swampland]

"Garfield Minus Garfield"

Pareene · 02/27/08 11:24AM

Sometimes Denton will send me some link and I will say "OLD! Defamer had it in January!" Because I read the entire Internet every day, which is why I am such a miserable bastard and no one really enjoys talking to me anymore. Anyway, that "Garfield without Garfield" thing is funny, isn't it? But it's not as clever as ARBUCKLE, the comic where Garfield remains in the strip but his thought bubbles are removed, which makes it all even more existential and depressing. (Also some of those photoshopped strips have been floating around message boards for years people.) (Seriously, I'm becoming completely intolerable to be around.) [Arbuckle, Garfield Minus Garfield]